If It Works For You
by the ramblin rose
Summary: Caryl AU. Oneshot. Sometimes it doesn't work for everyone, but if it works for you? That's all that really matters. Carol/Daryl


**AN: So this was in response to the Tumblr prompt that wanted Carol and Daryl in a dysfunctional relationship. I hope you like what I've done with it.**

 **As always, I own nothing from the Walking Dead.**

 **I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think!**

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This was never where they were supposed to end up. It was never how it was supposed to end. And that, honestly, was mostly owing to the fact that it was simply never supposed to end. They were going to be together forever. They were going to be the couple that died together, in each other's arms, and spent even their last breaths loving one another.

Now? They were sitting in separate chairs in a law office and Carol was wondering how they got there. She could look at his face, too, and see that he was wondering the same thing. She knew him that well. She could tell, at a glance, pretty much what was on his mind. It was one of the things that had made her sure that they were really the forever kind of people. Most people found him impenetrable. They thought he was practically impossible to understand. Carol had never found any difficulty in that, though.

Yet here they were, and still she couldn't quite remember why.

When Michonne Williams entered the room, both Carol and Daryl stood up to be polite and respectful. She waved them down and they returned to their seated positions even as she took her own seat behind the glossy wooden desk that very nearly dwarfed her.

She folded her hands, a cross expression on her face, and regarded them each invidually before she spoke at all.

Michonne had handled Carol's divorce—her first divorce, apparently, since it seemed she was doomed to be one of those women that collected numerous ones during her lifetime—and she'd known both Carol and Daryl for years. She had to. It was a small town and she was one of the only lawyers around. She was, arguably, the only good lawyer within fifty miles.

Michonne sighed and shook her head, the cross expression never fading from her features.

"What are you doing here?" She asked.

"Here for a divorce," Daryl said, matter of factly.

Already this was different than Carol's first divorce. The whole nature of the thing was different. She was in over her head. She didn't know what she was doing now. The first divorce? It had involved lawyers—plural—and restraining orders. It had involved a fight that felt like it would never end just to get things squared away. Though Carol had once heard someone speaking about such an anomaly as a peaceful divorce, she hadn't been able to believe that such a thing even existed because her thoughts were colored by her own experiences.

Yet, here they were. Neither of them were fighting. Carol had no desire to fight with Daryl, and she suspected that he felt the same. Everything that had to be said? Well, it was already said.

"You want a divorce?" Michonne asked.

"Ain't that what you do?" Daryl asked.

Michonne looked at Carol for clarification, but Carol didn't so much as move a muscle from the position that she'd been holding since she returned to her seat.

"It's what I do," Michonne confirmed. "Sometimes—I do other things too."

"Well, we don't want all the other things," Daryl said, "just the divorce."

Michonne sighed and pinched at the bridge of her nose like their presence there was causing her a migraine or something.

"Who is representing you?" Michonne asked without looking at either of them. "Who is the other lawyer?"

"There's no one else," Carol offered, trying to ease the confusion and possible suffering of the woman. Though they weren't friends—at least they weren't backyard barbecue kind of pals—Carol respected Michonne and she liked her. She could understand, too, how such a practical woman as Michonne Williams was wondering exactly how it was that Carol and Daryl Dixon were sitting in front of her and asking for a divorce. "You're the only one. We thought you could represent us both. We don't want—we aren't looking to fight. We just want a clean divorce."

Michonne looked up. She glanced back and forth between them once more. It felt, honestly, like they were sitting at the principal's office and were awaiting punishment for something they'd done without realizing it.

"In my experience?" Michonne offered. "There's no such thing as a clean divorce. It doesn't happen. Because if we're going to do this? We're going to start having to divide everything you have. Everything you've acquired. Everything has to go somewhere. It has to go to someone. And that's when the trouble begins, even if there wasn't that much bad blood before."

Carol looked at Daryl. Just like she knew he would, he rolled his eyes to the side to look at her. He was looking to her for guidance. He was looking to her for support. He was waiting for her to give him something that let him know that he was doing fine—he could proceed just as he was—and she was there to support him.

He needed that from her. He needed her to remind him that he was as good as any other man who had walked the face of the Earth—better than most. He needed her to remind him that, especially to her, he was simply _good_. He rested easy at night just because she believed he was a good person and worthy of the air that he breathed. Most of what he did, even if he didn't know it, was done to earn her approval. She knew it, even if he didn't.

Daryl always won her approval. Even when she wasn't necessarily happy with every single thing about him or every single thing that happened in their lives, Daryl won her approval. He was the best man that she'd ever known. He was the best man for her that she believed had ever existed or would exist.

That was why she wasn't sure what they were doing there. Maybe, before they'd come, she'd thought she understood, but now? She just wasn't sure. She was growing ever more unsure as each second passed.

But now he needed her approval. He needed her to let him know that he was doing well. So she did the only thing that she knew to do. She offered him the soft smile and the gentle nod of encouragement that he sought several times a day.

"She can have most everything," Daryl said. He shook his head. "I come into the marriage without nothing but her. If I'm leaving her behind? I reckon I'm fine with leaving everything else."

Carol quickly protested.

"He's earned most of what we have," she said. "Most of it belongs to him. It's his. If nothing else? Divide it evenly. As evenly as possible."

Daryl spoke to Michonne next, causing the woman now to look back and forth between them to follow the conversation instead of simply to study them like she'd been doing before.

"Everything I earned? I done it for her," Daryl said. "It was for her. Because I wanted her to have it. I want her to have it still. It's hers. If I go? It stays with her."

Carol started to protest again, but Michonne held both her hands up at them to stop them both from speaking and from adding to the thoughts with which they were bombarding her.

"I have never—never—had a divorce where the couple was going to fight over who got more of their stuff," Michonne said. She laughed to herself, tried to get it under control, and failed. The laugh grew until she finally sat back in the large chair—practically a throne—and let the laugh run its course.

Carol glanced at Daryl. He was watching her out of the corner of his eye. Neither of them knew how to respond so neither of them said a thing until Michonne spoke again.

"Why are you here?" She asked. "I need—before I can do more? I need to understand this. Why are you here?"

"For a divorce," Daryl responded. His answer almost had the sound of someone giving a well-rehearsed line.

Michonne sighed deeply.

"I understand that," she said. "But why do you want a divorce? What in your life made you wake up, this morning, and decide that you needed to come and talk to me? What made you decide that you don't want to be together anymore?"

Daryl looked at Carol. This time it wasn't out of the corner of his eye. This time? It was a clear request for help and support. So Carol nodded gently at him and then decided to take on the role of answering such a difficult question—even if she wasn't entirely sure of the answer herself.

"It's not that we want a divorce," Carol said, "it's that we need a divorce."

Michonne hummed.

"You need a divorce?" She pressed.

Carol shifted around in her chair.

"Three months ago," Carol said, "we went to a therapy session with Merle and Andrea. They were having trouble? So we went to the session because they wanted someone there that knew them and that could act as—as..."

Carol stumbled over the word.

"Mediators?" Daryl offered. "Go betweens? Neutral voices."

Michonne hummed and nodded.

"OK, so you went to a therapy session for Merle and Andrea," she said, counting off facts out loud as she collected them mentally. "The last I heard, though, they're doing fine. Right? It was after that issue that came up with Angel Lawton?"

"Merle wasn't cheating, but Andrea thought he was," Daryl offered, even though Michonne hadn't asked the question. "But he weren't cheating and they went to the shrink. She talked him outta thinking about it and talked Andrea outta cold cocking him for thinking he thought about it."

Michonne laughed and Carol chuckled to herself as well.

"So you went in for a session," Michonne said with a nod of her head, "because you were invited to come? You were asked to come?"

Daryl glanced at Carol. Of course, she wouldn't have seen it if she wasn't glancing right back at him. She smiled at him and then she nodded at Michonne.

"We went to the session and we did everything we were asked to do," Carol said. "It wasn't much—just confirm some stories. Give our perspectives to them. We all basically sat in like a—like a..."

"Circle," Daryl offered, drawing something that wasn't much like a circle in the air with his finger.

Michonne shrugged. She looked more confused now than she had when she'd come in to find them both sitting there. She had no idea why they were there. Of course, Carol thought—and maybe Daryl did too—that Michonne wasn't the only one in the room that felt that way.

"So why are you here?" Michonne asked. "Not Merle and Andrea...why are Carol and Daryl Dixon sitting here? In my office? On this Tuesday in particular?"

Carol chewed her lip.

"After we finished with them," Carol said, "I guess we had said some things that—got the attention of the doctor? She asked us if we had a moment, and we did. So we stayed. Andrea and Merle? When their time was up? They left. But she took us back to her office."

"We just thought we was gonna answer a couple more questions about them," Daryl threw in quickly. "About that whole—situation."

Carol nodded at him and then returned her eyes to Michonne.

"But she started asking us questions about ourselves," Carol said. "After we talked to her for fifteen minutes..."

"Half an hour, at least," Daryl interjected.

"She told us that we should come and talk to her," Carol said. "She wanted to set up appointments with us. She said that it looked like we might benefit from talking to her."

Michonne shrugged again. Now, though, she didn't look confused any longer. Now she looked more like she was simply enthralled in a story that she knew would end at some point. The confusion of not having an answer at all was replaced with the anticipation of an eventual explanation.

"So?" She prompted, when nobody continued immediately. "A lot of couples go to therapy. It helps, sometimes. It doesn't mean, just because a doctor said you should come and talk to her, that you need to get a divorce. That's like—deciding to die because someone suggested you see your physician about a nagging cough or headache."

Carol shook her head. She didn't respond though. She didn't have to verbally say anything. Daryl picked up for her from there. Listening and following along with the story had gotten him started. It had given him a starting point from which he could work to continue on—and once he felt ready to go on with a story? Daryl had no problem continuing it. He simply needed, sometimes, someone to get him going.

"We went to her stupid meetings," Daryl said. "Sat right there—right in chairs just like these here. And she asked us questions and we told her stories. In a couple weeks? We almost told her everything about us from—stuff I didn't even wanna share with her because it weren't her business to...to..."

But he didn't finish. At least, he didn't finish with that thought. He gnawed at his thumb for a second—a nervous habit that he'd had for as long as Carol had known him—to get his thoughts together and then he spoke again, picking up at a different point.

"She told us that we had a distinctional relationship," Daryl said.

"Dysfunctional," Carol corrected quickly.

"Whatever," Daryl muttered. "Said—that we were too dependent. Said that—it weren't healthy. It was unhealthy for both of us. Relied too much on each other. That ain't how good relationships are supposed to go. That ain't how the healthy ones work. We're—hurting each other. Messing each other up. Didn't even know it, but it ain't healthy and it ain't gonna work. We shouldn't be together. Wrong kind of edges to the pieces and all that junk."

Carol giggled to herself at Daryl's version of the information, but she really couldn't say that he'd falsely represented what had happened in the office.

"She suggested that, maybe, with long term therapy, we could overcome these issues," Carol said. "She suggested that maybe we could change ourselves and change our relationship so that it was a healthy relationship, but that—as it stands? It's unhealthy all the way around."

Michonne stared at both of them. Carol didn't know what the new expression on the woman's face meant. She couldn't read Michonne like she could read Daryl.

"You want a divorce because a psychiatrist—new to town, even—said that your relationship is dysfunctional?" Michonne asked.

"She'd know," Daryl said. "That's her job. Fixed up Merle and Andrea."

"They weren't really broken," Michonne said, blankly. "They have some doubt issues. As long as I've known them? They've had some doubt issues. Insecurity. Andrea's been insecure her whole life. I'd wager Merle has been too. But they aren't broken. They just needed—reassurance. They needed someone to force them to sit down and talk about it. That's what they got. It wasn't that she did anything special. It was just that—she was the only one that got them to sit down and discuss it."

Carol looked at Daryl and caught him looking at her.

Michonne made a noise in her throat that wasn't too far from a growl.

"The people that come in here? The ones that need divorces? The ones that want divorces? Their marriages aren't working. Just like Carol and Ed. There's something there that's either really toxic—like with them—or there's something there that somebody can't get over. They get divorced because they can't stand the idea of staying together. They usually hate each other by the time that they come here. The marriage? It's already over. The divorce just lets the government know."

She moved around, sliding herself up in her seat, to the edge of it apparently, so that she was closer to the desk that divided her from Carol and Daryl.

"Are you happy together?" She asked.

They looked at each other and nodded.

"Are you—do you love each other?" Michonne asked.

Carol didn't even need to look at Daryl for her response to that. She knew that she loved him. She couldn't imagine loving anyone else at this point. He must have answered the same way.

"You love each other and you're happy together," Michonne said. "What more can you want from your marriage?"

"It's dysfunctional," Carol said. "There are—dependence issues."

Michonne laughed to herself.

"I'm no expert," she said, "but in my experience? All relationships are dysfunctional. That's how they function. And it's not the dependency issues that you have to worry about. So your marriage is dysfunctional to a psychiatrist. Did you think it was dysfunctional when you went in there?"

Carol glanced at Daryl. He shook his head no at her with question on his face. He was checking to make sure his answer was correct. He was making sure that he wouldn't disagree with her when he responded with what seemed right to him. She smiled at him and shook her head gently before verbally responding in the negative.

Michonne shook her head then and stood up.

"Then I deny your request for a divorce," she said. "You can't have one. Unless you come in here with a real reason? Unless you come in here hating one another and not wanting to spend another night in the same house? I deny your request for a divorce."

"We're not healthy for each other," Daryl said. "We're not good for each other. She said so."

Michonne laughed.

"You're perfect for each other," she said. "Dysfunctional or not, this is it, kids. You've got what you both need. You're both happy. You both seem fulfilled. I had a cheeseburger for lunch—that's unhealthier than whatever you've got going on. No. I'm denying you a divorce unless you can come back in here and prove to me you earned it."

Daryl looked at Carol and furrowed his eyebrows.

"We're staying married?" He asked.

Carol didn't try to hide her smile. They'd thought the woman was right. They'd thought she was knowledgeable and she was trying to be helpful when she'd pointed out why their marriage was doomed—why it was bad for both of them—and why it would ruin their lives.

Together? They'd agreed that they'd each rather be unhappy—because being without the other would necessarily make them unhappy—than know that they'd done anything to hurt the other or ruin their lives. They'd sealed the decision with a love making session that they'd decided to regard as the last one—the one that they'd keep as a memory.

They didn't want to be there. And Carol wasn't sure why they were. But they'd thought it was the right thing to do, even if it was something that neither of them wanted.

"I guess we are," Carol offered. "We have to. If Michonne won't help us get divorced—and I'm not trusting it to the Greene firm."

Michonne made a loud sound of discontent at that.

"Don't trust anything to that firm," she said. "I wouldn't let them handle a divorce between my worst enemies."

Carol laughed at that.

"Don't listen to that woman," Michonne said. "For your own sanity? You're doing alright. You might not be perfect, and you might not have the perfect marriage for her, but—as long as it's perfect for you two? Congratulations. You're still married and you're going to stay that way. Go home."

Michonne started around the large desk and out of her office to dismiss them. Apaprently, she'd said all that she was going to say on the matter and she wasn't going to entertain them any longer. She had other clients to see and other cases to handle—cases that might actually come to fruition. Carol hated that they'd taken her time and that they'd bothered her, honestly, but she didn't hate that they were walking out of there without a divorce and, maybe, with a little more confidence in their marriage.

"Hey," Daryl barked, getting Michonne's attention before she left the office. She stopped and turned, waiting to see what he might have to add. He smiled at her. "Thanks," he said. "You could be one of them doctors too, if you wanted. You done better'n she did at saving our marriage."

Michonne actually smiled at that.

"My second career choice," she said before she dismissed herself from the space and left Carol and Daryl to ponder what they might do with their new lease on their shared life.


End file.
